X Problems With The Super Bowl

photo by answers.com Veni, vidi, vici.


I) Neutral site venues, the tedium of the sunbelt or dome stadiums. The virtual monopoly of Florida, New Orleans or southern California (however not since 1993).Why should the home fans of the best team left standing after the regular and postseason
be forced to watch the game at home on TV?

II) The momentum killing break before the Super Bowl. Week after week of glorious football put on hold for no good reason.

III) The hype, to counteract the momentum killing break, it is necessary to hype an event that does not need it. The hype almost reduces the Championship to Don King Boxing levels.

IV) February is too late for football, this makes the Pro Bowl, which is the lamest all star game in major North American sports virtually a Valentine Day event.

V) There is something wrong when the commercials are almost overshadowing the game.

VI) The lame halftime show. One of the most memorial Super Bowl moments in history was the Janet Jackson Justin Timberlake wardrobe malfunction very revealing.

VII)The name itself Bowl Games are for college football 'Super Bowl' lacks the dignity of the World Series or Stanley Cup

VIII) It is an anticlimax it is rarely close, it is often over by halftime.

IX) I think of NFL football as a game played on Sunday afternoons not Sunday Night. The Super Bowl should be played during daylight hours.

X) The use of Roman numerals, why not use Latin as the official language of the NFL?

Vladimir Poutine

"Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century." - Vladimir Putin April 25, 2005
What are we to make of a Russian President who makes such a proclamation? If a German Chancellor declared that the fall of the Third Reich was a major geopolitical disaster of the century well you could imagine the uproar. Comrade Putin has it all wrong. The creation of the Soviet Union was THE GREATEST disaster of the 20th century. The Bolsheviks signed the terrible little treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Russian Civil War and the long list of mass killings by Lenin and Stalin were a result of the Russian Revolution and the creation of the USSR. There would not been any Gulags, purges and mass famines across what Reagen rightly termed the Evil Empire. Russia's role in the cause of the Second World War has shamefully been ignored; the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact made Hitler's attack on Poland possible. The myth of The Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 ignores the Red Armies invasion of Poland in 1939, the Winter War, and the Soviet expansion into the Baltic states. Stalin's gross negligence and incompetence which permitted the Nazis to inflict massive and unnecessary losses on the Russian people in the spring/summer of 1941 is hushed up. Stalin fought the war with such ruthlessness, and with such a lack of skill that a butcher like Sir Douglas Haig (of the Somme and Passchendaele horrors of the First War) looks like a military genius who took minimal losses. The Russian people should not only be aware of the horrors inflicted on them by the Nazis but also those committed by their vicious and unskilled master in the Kremlin.The Russian people should be proud of how they fought and defeated the bulk of the Nazi war machine; they should also know how badly they were led. How the mighty Red Army took excessive losses and was permitted to fall into an orgy of rape,looting and murder during the march into Germany in 1945. The heroic front-line fighters were betrayed by their leadership.The Soviets post war sins should not be forgotten as well. Mao, Pol Pot, and the North Korea and Viet Nam
are all the murderous prodigy of the Russian Revolution and the USSR . Now Putin and the Chinese are moving the world towards a new Cold War with old client states like North Korea, Iran and Sudan in tow. Fellow travellers like Hugo Chavez are enabling this. While the useful idiots in the world media keep the world distracted on a host of other things. Putin has learned the wrong history and is determined to have us relive this misreading of history.

Royal with Cheese

"Quelques arpents de neige": A few acres of snow Voltaire's description of Canada might play a role in the French Presidential Election. It is unlikely that Ségolène Royal is about to meet her Waterloo over A few acres of snow. Yet a few acres of snow might be her Stalingrad. A whole series of foreign policy gaffes ranging from Canada to China from Palestine to Iran have come up. Royal looks more like a triumph of style over substance. Now her handlers probably wish they could gag her. By wading into the snowy waste of Canadian politics her limitations as a national and international leader has come to light. Her comments on Quebec have now morphed into questions on Corsica as well. The French would not like a Canadian Prime Minister giving support to Basque or Corsican separatists. Nor would the French like some self-proclaimed Caliphate supporting freedom for French Muslims. Her concern for freedom in Quebec is touching but bear in mind that Canada ranks higher on press freedom than does France, not to mention corruption where Canada fairs better than France. Perhaps another quote from Voltaire to ponder "My God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies"

Welcome to Stone Boat Blog

Welcome to Stone Boat Blog a place where I plan to drag out a few ideas. This might go over like a lead balloon but I'll give it a try. I hope to explore History, Philosophy, Politics, Popular Culture and Sports; just about anything and everything I suppose.